Hoosier/ˈhuːʒər/ is the officialdemonym for the people of theU.S. state ofIndiana. The origin of the term remains a matter of debate;[1] however, "Hoosier" was in general use by the 1840s,[2] having been popularized byRichmond resident John Finley's 1833 poem "The Hoosier's Nest".[2] Indiana adopted the nickname "The Hoosier State" more than 150 years ago.[1]
"Hoosier" is used in the names of numerous Indiana-based businesses and organizations. "Hoosiers" is also thename of theIndiana University athletic teams. As there is no accepted embodiment of a Hoosier, the IU schools are represented through their letters and colors alone. The term is universally accepted by residents of Indiana and, as of 2017, is also the official demonym used by theU.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO), making it the only GPO-recommended demonym of any US state that is not directly formed from the state's name. Before 2017, the GPO-recommended demonym for the state was "Indianian".[3]
In addition to "The Hoosier's Nest", the term also appeared in theIndianapolis Journal's "Carrier's Address" on January 1, 1833. There are many suggestions for the derivation of the word but none is universally accepted. In 1833, thePittsburghStatesman said the term had been in use for "some time past" and suggested it originated from census workers calling "Who's here?". Also in 1833, former Indiana GovernorJames B. Ray began publishing a newspaper titledThe Hoosier.[4]
In 1900,Meredith Nicholson wroteThe Hoosiers, an early attempt to study theetymology of the word as applied to Indiana residents.Jacob Piatt Dunn, longtime secretary of theIndiana Historical Society, publishedThe Word Hoosier, a similar attempt, in 1907.[5] Both chronicled some of the popular and satirical etymologies circulating at the time and focused much of their attention on the use of the word in theUpland South to refer to woodsmen, yokels, and rough people. Dunn traced the word back to theCumbrianhoozer, meaning anything unusually large, derived from theOld Englishhoo (as atSutton Hoo), meaning "high" and "hill". The importance of immigrants from northernEngland and southernScotland was reflected in numerous placenames including theCumberland Mountains, theCumberland River, and theCumberland Gap.[1] Nicholson defended the people of Indiana against such an association, while Dunn concluded that the early settlers had adopted the nickname self-mockingly and that it had lost its negative associations by the time of Finley's poem.[6]
Johnathan Clark Smith subsequently showed that Nicholson and Dunn's earliest sources within Indiana were mistaken. A letter by James Curtis cited by Dunn and others as the earliest known use of the term was actually written in 1846, not 1826. Similarly, the use of the term in an 1859 newspaper item quoting an 1827 diary entry by Sandford Cox was more likely an editorial comment and not from the original diary. Smith's earliest sources led him to argue that the word originated as a term along theOhio River forflatboatmen from Indiana and did not acquire its pejorative meanings until 1836,after Finley's poem.[7]
William Piersen, a history professor atFisk University, argued for a connection to theMethodist ministerRev.Harry Hosier (c. 1750–May 1806), who evangelized the American frontier at the beginning of the 19th century as part of theSecond Great Awakening. "Black Harry" had been born a slave inNorth Carolina and sold north toBaltimore,Maryland, before gaining his freedom and beginning his ministry around the end of theAmerican Revolution. He was a close associate and personal friend ofBishopFrancis Asbury, the "Father of the American Methodist Church".Benjamin Rush said of him that "making allowances for his illiteracy, he was the greatest orator in America".[8] His sermons called on Methodists to rejectslavery and to champion the common working man. Piersen proposed that Methodist communities inspired by his example took or were given a variant spelling of his name (possibly influenced by the "yokel" slang[8]) during the decades after his ministry.[9]
According to Washington County newspaper reports of the time,[when?] Abraham Stover was Colonel of the Indiana Militia. He was a colorful figure in early Washington County history. Along with his son-in-law, John B. Brough, he was considered one of the two strongest men in Washington County. He was always being challenged to prove his might, and seems to have won several fights over men half his age. After whipping six or eight men in a fist fight in Louisville, Kentucky, he cracked his fists and said, "Ain't I a husher",[clarification needed] which was changed in the news to "Hoosier", and thus originated the name of Hoosier in connection with Indiana men.[10][full citation needed][11]
Jorge Santander Serrano, a PhD student fromIndiana University, has also suggested thatHoosier might come from theFrench words for 'redness',rougeur, or 'red-faced',rougeaud.[12] According to this hypothesis, the early pejorative use of the wordHoosier may have a link to the color red ("rouge" in French) which is associated withindigenous peoples, pejoratively called "red men" or "red-skins", and also with poor white people by calling them "red-necks".
Humorousfolk etymologies for the term "hoosier" have a long history, as recounted by Dunn inThe Word Hoosier.
One account traces the word to the necessary caution of approaching houses on the frontier. In order to avoid being shot, a traveler would call out from afar to let themselves be known. The inhabitants of thecabin would then reply "Who's here?" which – in theAppalachian English of the early settlers – slurred into "Who'sh 'ere?" and thence into "Hoosier?" A variant of this account had the Indiana pioneers calling out "Who'sh 'ere?" as a general greeting and warning when hearing someone in the bushes and tall grass, to avoid shooting a relative or friend in error.[13]
The poetJames Whitcomb Riley facetiously suggested that the fierce brawling that took place in Indiana involved enough biting that the expression "Whose ear?" became notable. This arose from or inspired the story of two 19th-century French immigrants brawling in a tavern in the foothills of southern Indiana. One was cut and a third Frenchman walked in to see an ear on the dirt floor of the tavern, prompting him to slur out "Whosh ear?"[14]
Two related stories trace the origin of the term to gangs of workers from Indiana under the direction of a Mr. Hoosier.
The account related by Dunn[15] is that a Louisville contractor named Samuel Hoosier preferred to hire workers from communities on the Indiana side of the Ohio River likeNew Albany rather than Kentuckians. During the excavation of thefirst canal around theFalls of the Ohio from 1826 to 1833, his employees became known as "Hoosier's men" and then simply "Hoosiers". The usage spread from these hard-working laborers to all of the Indiana boatmen in the area and then spread north with the settlement of the state. The story was told to Dunn in 1901 by a man who had heard it from a Hoosier relative while traveling in southernTennessee. Dunn could not find any family of the given name in any directory in the region or anyone else in southern Tennessee who had heard the story and accounted himself dubious. This version was subsequently retold byGov. Evan Bayh andSen. Vance Hartke, who introduced the story into theCongressional Record in 1975,[16] and matches the timing and location of Smith's subsequent research. However, theU.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been unable to find any record of a Hoosier or Hosier in surviving canal company records.[14]
The word "hoosier" has been used inGreater St. Louis as a pejorative for an unintelligent or uncultured person.[17][18][19][a] The word is also encountered insea shanties. In the bookShanties from the Seven Seas[20] by Stan Hugill, in reference to its former use to denotecotton-stowers, who would move bales of cotton to and from the holds of ships and force them in tightly by means ofjackscrews.
AHoosier cabinet, often shortened to "hoosier", is a type of free-standing kitchen cabinet popular in the early decades of the twentieth century. Almost all of these cabinets were produced by companies located in Indiana and the name derives from the largest of them, the Hoosier Manufacturing Co. ofNew Castle, Indiana. Other Indiana businesses includeHoosier Racing Tire and the Hoosier Bat Company, manufacturer of woodenbaseball bats.
TheRCA Dome, former home of theIndianapolis Colts, was known as the "Hoosier Dome" beforeRCA purchased thenaming rights in 1994. The RCA Dome was replaced byLucas Oil Stadium in 2008.
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